Dermot Gallagher reacts live on Sky Sports to incident in West Ham United loss v Aston Villa
Dermot Gallagher has praised the officials for how they awarded a penalty to Aston Villa against West Ham on Sunday (22 October).
Speaking on Sky Sports’ Ref Watch on Monday (23 October, 11:48am), the former Premier League referee said it was “tremendous teamwork” from the officials as they adjudged Edson Alvarez to have brought down Ezri Konsa in the second half.
He added that it was the linesman who told the referee to give the penalty after he had a better view of the situation, with Douglas Luiz stepping up to put it away in the 4-1 victory for Villa.
“I think this is tremendous teamwork,” said Gallagher. “The referee hasn’t got the best view of this, but Constantine Hatzidakis (the linesman) has because he’s fed back to him.
“If you look at the angle, you’ll see that it’s the assistant that makes this call. He sees that tackle, says to the referee penalty and he gives it.”
Subjective
This was a subjective decision because in real time it definitely did look like Alvarez had brought Konsa down and you can understand why it was given.
But it appears to be the Villa centre-back that initiates the contact as he puts his leg across the Mexican, who then catches the man and he goes down.
It was one of those decisions that VAR was probably always going to side with the referee on as there was no clear and obvious error in giving the penalty.
The biggest frustration was that it was a completely avoidable situation as Lucas Paqueta played a poor ball back to Alvarez that led to the foul being awarded.
While the Brazilian does a lot of superb things for the Hammers on the pitch, sometimes he has to be a bit smarter when he is in possession of the ball near his own box.
In other West Ham news, a Paqueta recall update has emerged amid the allegations aimed at him.